A small problem? It seemed like a major catastrophe to me. What a situation to be in. We had to open the door to see, but we couldn’t open the door or he’d escape. Marsha and I pondered our dilemma and a depressing silence began to fill the front room, a silence that was only broken by faint cries.
I sat up and listened. The whimpering seemed strange, as if someone really was crying. Was Norman sobbing in the cellar? Marsha had noticed too and we gazed at each other in puzzlement. I went to the door. The crying wasn’t coming from the cellar. It was from beyond the front door.
We crept across the hall. There was definitely someone, or something, crying outside. Marsha whispered, ‘I’ll open the door and you rush out and surprise them.’
‘How about I open the door and you rush out?’ I suggested.
‘We open the door and we both rush out,’ Marsha said.
So we did. We dashed out and there was – a baby. Norman’s little sister. Petal was sitting in her pushchair and crying and waving her little fists in the air.
‘Her name’s Petal,’ I groaned, as Marsha pushed her inside. ‘What do we do?’
‘Why did Norman bring his little sister with him?’ Marsha demanded crossly.
‘I don’t know. Ask him. Maybe he was looking after her when we rang and there was nobody at home to keep an eye on her, so he had to bring her.’
‘Didn’t you notice he had a baby with him when he arrived?’ Marsha snapped.
‘No. Did you?’
We stared at each other angrily. Marsha put her hands to her head and took several deep breaths. ‘We’ll have to take her back to their house.’
‘That’s crazy! The first thing the Vorks will do is ask us why we’ve got their baby And suppose they’re out?’
‘We hand her in to the police then.’
‘Are you mad? They’ll ask us where we got her from. They’ll ask hundreds of questions. They know us already remember? “Was it a Camembert, or Gorgonzola?” You know what they’re like.’ Petal was still crying. ‘Can’t you stop her making that noise?’
‘How am I supposed to do that?’
‘You tell me. You’re the girl.’ Me and my big mouth! As soon as I said it, I wished the pavement would open up and swallow me whole.
Marsha stopped dead. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Rob? Are babies a girl-thing only? I don’t think so. Are boys banned from looking after babies? I don’t think so. Are boys unable to look after babies? I don’t think so.’ She glared at me. I was rapidly losing count of how many times Marsha glared at me these days. ‘You’re in this too, Rob. We are going to have to look after this baby, and I mean we – not me, by myself, on my own, without your help – but both of us, got it?’ She paused, her nose wrinkled up and she added in a slightly scared kind of voice. ‘They have nappies and… stuff.’
We both glanced at Petal. Nappies were definitely not top of my list of What to Do with a Yelling Baby.
‘Maybe she’s hungry’ I suggested.
‘Maybe her nappy needs changing,’ muttered Marsha.
‘Let’s try the easy end first,’ I said, wheeling the pushchair into the kitchen. ‘What do you think small space monsters eat?’
Marsha shook her head. ‘Doesn’t really matter, Rob, does it? I don’t think Mum buys alien food very often. It’s not the sort of thing we have much call for really.’ Marsha had a point, I suppose. She opened the fridge and peered inside. ‘She’ll have to have cheese on toast. It’s the only thing I know how to cook. Can’t you stop her yelling? Pick her up or something.’
I stared at the screaming infant. Pick her up? Urgh! She might do something, like wee on me, or throw up. I’ve got an uncle and aunt with a little baby, and he’s always doing stuff like that. I mean, he just LEAKS everywhere. I looked around for some kind of protection, but all I could find was a big, black bin-liner and some huge pink rubber kitchen gloves. I tore a hole in the bottom of the liner, one on each side, and pulled it over my head. I stuck my hands in the gloves.
Marsha fell about. ‘What are you doing?’
I pulled the edges of the sack down around my legs and began unfastening Blubberbags from the pushchair. ‘Listen, I am not going to have baby-sick all over my clothes, OK?’
‘If you say so.’ Marsha started cutting some slices of cheese, but she was still laughing. I could tell by the way her shoulders went up and down.
I tried calming the baby. I clutched her to my shoulder and bounced her up and down, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. She carried on screaming into my left earhole until my brain began ringing. It was like having an entire ambulance station stuck inside your head.
I sat her back in the pushchair and tried to entertain her by pulling stupid faces. ‘Look! Funny face!’ I said. I went cross-eyed. I pulled out my ears. I made silly noises. I stuck out my tongue. That’s when baby hit me. BAMM!
Boy could she pack a punch! I crashed backwards and slammed against the open fridge. Half the contents came raining down on my head.
Have you ever noticed what people put in their fridges? I’ll tell you – wet, cold things. Almost everything that goes into a fridge is wet, or cold, or both. My head was treated to a shampoo of milk, eggs, yoghurt, bacon slices, a piece of fish, fruit juice, tomatoes…
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ cried Marsha, ‘and you were worried about the baby being sick. Rob, the entire fridge has just thrown up over you. Look at the mess you’ve made! Can’t you do anything helpful?’
There was a muffled yell from the cellar. ‘What’s going on out there? Let me out!’
‘Shut up!’ I shouted back.
Then we realized that baby had stopped crying. Do you know what she was doing now? Laughing.
Laughing at ME.
You see? It’s like I said, everyone does. How horrible can a baby get? First she smacks me in the face, and then she laughs at me. There is no justice.
11 We Find Out More About Babies
I set about cleaning myself up. At least the bin-liner had saved me from too much damage. Marsha finished off the cheese on toast and tried it out on Petal. Baby kept her mouth clamped shut. Marsha tried playing aeroplanes with her. You know, making the food fly through the air.
‘Here it comes,’ said Marsha, making her cheese-on-toast aeroplane dive out of the kitchen sky. ‘Here it comes, nyeeeaaaaah, and open your mouth…’ The mouth stayed shut and the cheese on toast almost crash-landed on Petal’s face.
‘I thought babies had to have their food all mashed up,’ I said.
‘Good idea.’ Marsha got out an electric mixer. She put the toast in the bowl and switched on. Bits of toast and cheese disintegrated and went flying out of the bowl and all over the kitchen. Marsha switched off and surveyed the bits of brown and yellow stuck to the walls and ceiling. ‘Maybe not such a good idea after all,’ she murmured.
Petal didn’t seem to think it was very funny either and started crying again. Marsha and I looked at each other. I knew what she was thinking. She knew what I was thinking. There was only one thing left to do. We would have to investigate The Other End.
‘Bathroom,’ said Marsha, and I agreed. Marsha grabbed Alien Monster and up we went. At this point I have to say I felt OK about the whole thing, because Marsha was holding the baby, and as long as I wasn’t holding the baby, everything was all right. However, when we reached the bathroom Marsha suddenly handed baby over to me, while she ran the bath, and all at once I didn’t feel OK at all.
‘Don’t make the water too hot,’ I said. ‘Babies are bathed in tepid water. You have to feel it with your elbow to make sure it’s the right temperature.’
Marsha stared at me. ‘How do you know?’
I smiled. ‘It was in my medical encyclopedia, so there.’ You know what? Marsha was actually impressed. She shoved her elbow into the bath, ran a bit more cold water and then began taking off baby’s clothes. Urgh! It was like unwrapping a present you know you really don’t want. This was a double first for me. Not on
ly had I never changed a baby’s nappy, I’d never seen alien poo before.
‘Can you hold my nose for me?’ asked Marsha in disgust, so I bent down and held her nose with one hand and my nose with the other. ‘No wonder she was crying,’ said Marsha, taking the nappy and sticking it into the bin. ‘Right, you hold her steady while I wash her.’
It felt really weird. All that time I’d been thinking how horrible it would be, I mean looking after a baby and all that, but it wasn’t. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. It felt… nice, cosy fun. Petal kicked her little legs and splashed us both. She gurgled and giggled and blew bubbles. I glanced at Marsha and noticed that her eyes had gone soft and dopey.
She looked at me and grinned. ‘Stop looking so soppy Rob.’
‘She’s going wrinkly round the edges,’ I snapped, fetching a towel. ‘Dry her off.’
It was only after we’d dried baby that we realized we didn’t have a clean nappy for her. ‘Now what do we do?’ I asked, and we searched around for something, anything we could use. All the bath towels were too big.
‘We’ll have to use loo roll,’ said Marsha, and that gave me an idea. I fished inside one of my pockets and produced a roll of bandage.
‘How about this?’
‘It’s better than nothing, but how come you’ve got something like this in your pocket?’
‘I always carry it, just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’
I didn’t dare tell Marsha how I lived in fear of cutting myself badly or breaking my arm or leg. ‘In case I ever find a baby that needs an instant nappy,’ I growled, and started winding the bandage round and round Petal’s bottom. Marsha lifted her up.
‘You’d better stop. She’s beginning to look like an Ancient Egyptian mummy.’
We took Mini-monster downstairs and tucked her up on the sofa where, mercifully, she fell asleep. With her mouth and eyes shut at the same time she looked almost angelic. It was hard to believe that she was related to that dark and evil creature lurking in the cellar.
‘Do you think Norman’s changed yet?’
‘Maybe. It probably takes a little while, like on the X-Files.’
I went out to the cellar door and listened. I kept expecting to hear alien noises, you know, hisses and slurps and growls, but there was nothing. Marsha seemed on edge.
‘I just hope the others aren’t able to track Norman and his sister to this house. They could try and get us.’
‘We’ve got the baby,’ I pointed out, and she nodded.
We stood and listened, but only silence drifted back, with just the occasional yell from Norman in the cellar. My eyelids drooped. I was worn out. Then we heard a key in the front door. It swung open and in walked Marsha’s mother. We dashed into the hall.
‘Oh, hello, Robert, you’re here.’ Mrs Zewlinsky gave me a second glance. ‘You look in a bit of a mess. Everything all right?’
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘It’s just that you seem to have something stuck in your hair.’ She looked more closely. ‘A slice of tomato. How did that get there?’
Marsha and I suddenly remembered the kitchen. It still looked as if an elephant had had a birthday party in there. We had to keep Marsha’s mum away. And out of the front room! I panicked. I tried desperately to think of some explanation for the mess, but Mrs Zewlinsky cut in on me.
‘Would anyone like a drink?’
‘No!’ Marsha and I chorused and Marsha leaped towards the door.
‘You can’t be thirsty already, Mum,’ she said.
Mrs Zewlinsky looked at both of us in turn. ‘Is there something going on here? Anything I should know about?’
Marsha decided to tell the truth. Not all of it, but just a little bit. ‘I made a bit of a mess in the kitchen, and we haven’t cleaned up yet. Sorry, Mum.’
‘We all make mistakes. At least you told me. Come on, I’ll give you a hand.’
‘I don’t think you…’ Marsha broke off. It was too late. Her mother was already in the kitchen.
Mrs Zewlinsky gazed at the walls and ceiling. She studied the floor in front of the fridge. ‘You did say a bit of a mess?’
‘A lot of a mess,’ Marsha corrected herself.
‘Why is there a pushchair here?’ (Oh no! We’d forgotten the pushchair. What a give-away.)
‘It’s mine,’ I squeaked, and I was thinking, Nightmares are nothing to what I am going through right now. Marsha’s mum stood there, waiting for me to explain why I went around with a pushchair and, of course, I couldn’t think of any possible reason on earth why I should. My mouth opened and shut, but no noise, no explanation came out. Marsha wasn’t any help either. She just stood there with a silly expression on her face.
A loud wail came from the front room.
‘What was that? It sounded just like a baby.’ True to form, Petal began giving her lungs a good work-out, yet again. Mrs Zewlinsky went straight to the front room.
‘Poor little thing!’ she cried, falling to her knees and gathering the infant to her chest. ‘What in heaven’s name is a baby doing here?’
It was at this point that Marsha’s brain finally seemed to wear out completely and she lost all sense of reason.
‘It’s Rob’s,’ she said.
‘Rob has a baby? He’s only eleven!’
‘No, no,’ protested Marsha, going incredibly red. ‘I don’t mean – that.’
‘Well, what do you mean?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Can we sit down, Mrs Zewlinsky? I can explain everything’ Then Norman began hammering on the cellar door and yelling, and I could feel the entire world come crashing down around me in a million billion fragments. Mrs Zewlinsky strode out to the hall and struggled with the cellar door key
‘Don’t open that door!’ I yelled. ‘There’s an alien in there!’
‘Don’t be so stupid.’
‘There is! You’ve got to believe us. We’ve got Norman Vork in there. He’s turning into an alien. He’s yellow and he’s got poisonous tentacles and…’
Mrs Zewlinsky at last yanked the door open and Norman came staggering out, blinking in the bright light of day.
He wasn’t yellow, and he didn’t have tentacles, but he was angry.
Well, maybe angry is the wrong word here. Imagine several hand grenades going off inside a drainpipe, or a nuclear explosion in the comfort of your own front room. Either of those will do.
He was spitting mad. It took Mrs Zewlinsky a good ten minutes to calm him down, not to mention preventing him from seizing Marsha and myself by the throat. As soon as Marsha’s mum had got Norman under control, she went mad. Everything had finally got too much for her.
‘I have had enough of this alien nonsense,’ she snapped, and she began strapping Petal into the pushchair. ‘We are going straight over to Mr and Mrs Vork’s and you can explain everything to them. I don’t want to hear your silly stories any longer, Marsha, and you’re just as bad, Robert. Come on!’
And we set off down the street. Norman pushed Petal. Marsha and I trailed along behind, while he kept turning round and smirking. As for Mrs Zewlinsky, she was still fuming away nicely behind us.
I couldn’t believe it. We were being frog-marched slap-bang into the arms of the enemy. Mrs Zewlinsky banged on the Vorks’ front door, while we waited beside her. From inside the house we could hear noises as someone, some THING, approached. We were knocking at the door, and Death was about to open it.
12 All Is Revealed
Death came in the shape of Mr Vork. His eyes fixed on Norman and the baby. ‘Where have you two been?’ he scowled. ‘Your mother’s been looking everywhere. We told you not to leave the house.’
‘I’m afraid that these two have got something to do with that, Mr Vork. Do you mind if we come in? They’ve got a bit of explaining to do and something they want to tell you.’ Without waiting to be asked, Marsha’s mum pushed past him, into the little hall, and the rest of us followed.
‘They shut me in the cellar, Dad,’ snarled
Norman. ‘I couldn’t get out.’
‘You what!’
‘Who’s that?’ cried Mrs Vork, hurrying through from the back of the house. ‘There you are! Where have you been?’
‘In a cellar,’ growled Mr Vork.
‘In a cellar?’ Mrs Vork seemed mystified.
‘They think your son’s an alien from outer space,’ sighed Mrs Zewlinsky.
‘An alien?’ Mrs Vork seemed even more mystified. ‘Is it his ears?’
‘An alien?’ growled Mr Vork. His thick eyebrows had knitted together over his eyes, like mating caterpillars.
‘I think we’d all better sit down while Marsha explains,’ suggested Mrs Zewlinsky.
‘Why me?’
Her mother pushed us through into the Vorks’ front room. ‘Just get on with it,’ said Mrs Zewlinsky, and then caught her breath. ‘My goodness, what a lot of computers and TVs and music systems. Are those mixing decks?’
‘I’m in the business,’ said Mr Vork, and his hairy caterpillars started crawling down the top of his nose.
‘He does repairs, you know…’ Mrs Vork’s voice trailed away. Mrs Zewlinsky was staring at the electronic mountain. Of course, it was no surprise to Marsha and me. We’d seen it all before. The only difference was that in broad daylight it did look rather more ordinary apart from the fact that there was so much of it.
Marsha seemed very taken with one particular television. From the doorway Mr Vork watched everyone carefully. His eyes had gone into darting mode. Marsha straightened up.
‘This television comes from our school. It’s got our school name written on the side in indelible ink. That’s so that nobody could steal it.’ She gazed steadily at Mr Vork. ‘But somebody did steal it, a few days ago, and now it’s here.’
The silence this announcement produced fell into the room like a boulder dropped from outer space. (A silent boulder.) It was stunning. The only noise was the sound of my brain whirring inside my head as things began to make a new kind of sense to me.
Mr Vork’s big body was blocking the door. He scowled back at Marsha and Mrs Zewlinsky. Mrs Vork began to whimper in the corner. ‘The girl knows,’ she whispered desperately. ‘I knew this would happen. It always does. You and Norman, you can’t stop…’
I'm Telling You, They're Aliens! Page 6